Land-sick!

Jumping on land and getting land-sick is a weird experience. It’s like you’re drunk and can’t stop moving. Especially in places where you sit or stand still, like on the toilet or under the shower, you feel it the most; invisible waves rocking you up and down from left to right. Your body is so used to counter balance the movements of the boat that it can not just stop doing so when you get of the boat. We clean the entire boat, clear customs, get our passport back and head into town. At night we end up in a weird and almost empty bar, which we overrun and turn into a very nice improvised birthday party. Precisely when the clock hits midnight I pot the last black ball of a game of pool and we all start dancing on old hits which we put on ourselves.

The next days we visit the beaches of Faial which are filled with plastic debris from the Atlantic Gyre. A sign on one of the beaches is telling us that it is being kept clean by the city, but what do they do with it afterwards?

In no time we fill up all the bags we brought with us and start to put them in and on top of the rental car. The flood line is packed with plastic plankton, almost more non-organic than organic material. Also in the waves the water is full of plastic particles.

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Plasticreef.com is a website containing information about the growing sculpture of artist Maarten Vanden Eynde, but also gives a brief summary of the history of plastic and offers a platform for various organisations and institutes working with plastic (production, collection, recycling and research) aiming to find solutions for emerging plastic problems.